Healthcare service providers often exchange healthcare data with other service providers. For example, patient samples collected at a medical practice may be sent to a laboratory for analysis, and the results of the analysis may be sent back to the medical practice to include in the patient's medical record. Many healthcare data transmissions between service providers in the healthcare system use paper-based methods, such as facsimile or providing paper documents to patients who bring the documents with them from one service provider to another.
With the recent adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) and other computer-based software in the healthcare community, many healthcare organizations are beginning to store data electronically rather than using paper-based documents. Despite the widespread adoption of electronic storage of health information, paper-based methods of healthcare data transmission are prevalent yet still among many healthcare providers due to the amount of work and cost typically associated with creating point-to-point computer-based interfaces between healthcare service provides to share data electronically.